1. Field of Invention
Apparatuses and methods consistent with the present invention relate to an image processing apparatus and a control method thereof, and more particularly to an image processing apparatus capable of monitoring a wake-up event in a power-off state and a control method thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
Suppose that an image processing apparatus such as a monitor of a computer system, a television, etc. is powered off: power is completely cut off from the image processing apparatus like a case that a plug of the image processing apparatus is pulled out, or power supplied to some parts of the image processing apparatus is cut off while the other parts still receive power to some extent (hereinafter, the latter case will be referred to as “soft power-off”).
In the latter case, for example, power is not supplied to a display panel, etc. but continuously supplied to a main processor for a standby-mode control, so that the image processing apparatus can be powered on again in response to a wake-up event such as a user's input.
Meanwhile, it is very important for reducing power to be consumed by the image processing apparatus in a soft power-off state (hereinafter, referred to as “standby power”) when designing the image processing apparatus. Particularly, since the main processor consumes more and more power as the current performance trend of the image processing apparatus gets higher, it is highly difficult to lower the standby power of the image processing apparatus to a very low level, e.g., 0.3 W.
As an example of a method to solve such problems, it may be considered that the main processor that consumes relatively high power to perform the standby-mode control is replaced by an auxiliary processor that consumes relatively low power to perform the same control and the power supplied to the main processor is cut off in the standby mode, thereby lowering as much standby power of the image processing apparatus as possible.
However, the above method is applicable only to some limited cases where, for example, the power is off based on an event such as a user's input that can be processed by the auxiliary processor (hereinafter, such an event will be referred to as a “power-off event”). In other words, this method is inapplicable to other cases where, for example, the power is off based on another event such as a soft timer-off, which is processed not by the auxiliary processor but by the main processor.